


Afterword

by brynnmck



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen, Post-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-05
Updated: 2005-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:25:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Her mind is naked to the world, but she needs nothing here, just </i>Serenity<i> thrumming against her back as the days cycle by in the changed world, one job to the next; she soaks everything in gratefully, like a sunflower, lets her stunted roots extend and grow.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterword

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Serenity_.

River curls around a mug of tea in a corner of the galley, presses her back against the wall to feel _Serenity_ 's heartbeat. The ship is blessedly quiet, centered, a cool balm after the chaotic stabbing madness of the Reavers, or even the turmoil of the displaced Alliance soldiers. Her mind is naked to the world, but she needs nothing here, just _Serenity_ thrumming against her back as the days cycle by in the changed world, one job to the next; she soaks everything in gratefully, like a sunflower, lets her stunted roots extend and grow.

Simon and Kaylee are together tonight, as they have been every night since _Serenity_ took flight again, and more than a few afternoons and mornings in between. They have a way of keeping her awake; not with noise—they are too close to each other, still, to let even sound escape their orbit—but with light, their joy in each other star-bright whenever they touch. River doesn't mind the loss of sleep; her dreams tend to be worth waiting for, now, and she thinks that maybe this is her reward, seeing Simon whole and happy, the worry lines eased in his face, the quick bloom of his smile. River teases him, and he pulls her hair, and Kaylee laughs at them both. And when Kaylee dreams of twisted horror faces and funeral fires, or Simon struggles in his sleep to stem an endless tide of wounds that never heal, they curl into each other, clutch close with whispers and tears. Simon sleeps again without ever leaving Kaylee's bunk, without an anxious tiptoed visit to see his sister safe, and River smiles.

Jayne is Jayne still, elemental, fighting and fucking and food, smelling and tasting everything. But when he lifts weights alone in the cargo bay, his breath hissing in and out, he thinks of statues, of heroes, of a preacher-who-wasn't who was half his weight and half again his age, who could hold his own against a mercenary and still find breath for speechifying. He thinks of a man who took him seriously, and a man who was never serious, tells himself about the cost of doing business and how a man has to look to himself first, but his arms rise and fall and rise and fall again until there is no more room for thought.

Inara takes no clients, lights incense in the bare shuttle, walks a pilgrimage around _Serenity_ with her hair loose and her face unpainted. She brings tea to Zoe, giggles with Kaylee, spars with Mal in a way that makes the rest of them wish for popcorn. She prays each night for the souls of those departed, for the souls of those left behind, and mourns the stretch of time forever lost to her. She will be the goddess again, be Cinderella with her own two slippers, but for now she is simple and true, healing and being healed, lit from the inside with a diffuse glow that softens everything around her.

The bridge still aches like an open wound. When the auto-pilot is engaged, Zoe sits alone in the wrong chair and watches the black drift by, hour by hour. Her grief is a canyon in her, wide and silent. The dinosaurs are without voice or movement now, but they're ranged across the console anyway, an honor guard, holding vigil with her. Kaylee sneaks in every day and cares for them, sweeps them with the cleanest rag she can find and places them deliberately back at their posts. Where they belong. River is sure that when Zoe notices, she'll be grateful. But she's lost now, smiles and laughter crawled deep inside that canyon, and River can only hear, over and over, _I want to meet that child someday_ , and she closes her eyes against the tears the other woman won't shed.

Mal watches, watches his second's back even more carefully than usual, more carefully than during the war. Mostly he keeps his distance, but sometimes he joins her on the bridge, sits there while they speak volumes without ever opening their mouths. His own guilt he keeps hidden, says nothing of the moments when he thinks he's deserving of his name, sees gaping holes and blood and empty eyes and wonders why he's the one who seems to keep on surviving. He paces the ship and touches her without thinking, his fingers drifting out to soothe a patch here, a scrape there. But there's grim satisfaction, too, the flame of victory in his heart gone from a candle to a bonfire, a fierce, tiny beacon as they slip and skirt around the edges of the world.

He's sleepless on this night, restless, and she blinks and isn't surprised to see his face outside the galley door. She sometimes delights in startling him, in the breathless jolt and slope of draining tension, but now his thoughts press on her heart like lead and she leans into a shaft of ambient light, lets him find her as he opens the door.

He stops a moment, takes her in, then flicks on a single lamp and crosses to pull a mug out of the cupboard. "Hey there, little albatross. Can't sleep?"

She shakes her head. "Not tired. Listening."

He raises an eyebrow, and he looks at her differently since Miranda, like she's a comrade and not cargo. He doesn't understand her—not even Simon understands her—but he knows her now, and it makes all the difference. "Can't imagine there's much worth hearing around here these days." He sets the kettle on the heating stovetop. "'Less you're interested in finding out just how wrong I think this job could go." He stares straight ahead for a minute, then huffs out a breath and shakes his head. "You'd think that puttin' a kink in the Alliance's tail would earn a man a little vacation. Next time I feel like making a last stand, remind me to make it one that pays better, _dong ma_?"

She just smiles a little. "You got paid."

He looks at her now, and his eyebrow climbs higher. "Yeah. I s'pose I did, at that." Then he's silent, and his mind twists around the empty spaces, never far away, of those who did the paying, and Zoe is on the bridge again.

"Not your fault," she says quietly, rising to take the mug out of his motionless hands.

He doesn't reply at first, then finally, low, "My crew. My responsibility. But anyway, fault don't change the fact."

She doesn't look at him, just moves silently around him, takes out a second mug, finds the tea leaves. And something stirs in her memory.

_Leaves._

"Leaf was in love with the Wind," she tells him slowly, feels his mind halt and throb and knows she's hit her mark. "He wanted to fly with Wind, wanted to see the world, see the wonders that the Wind could show him." She keeps working, so focused on the sudden storm in him that she only distantly realizes that her eyes are closed, her hands completing the familiar task in the dark. "Tree told him that he would fall and die, but he trusted Wind and was not afraid." He's perfectly still now, hands tight on the edge of the counter. "He fell, as Tree said he would, but he was joyful as he soared, and when he fell to earth, he fell asleep for a long while. When he woke up," she continues, softly, her lips curving, seeing the story in her crowded mind, "he was the dust of the earth, and so light that Wind could carry him anywhere he wanted to go. And when he had traveled everywhere and seen everything, Wind carried him up into the clouds and he fell to the earth again as rain." She opens her eyes, looks over at Mal, rigid grief and clenched jaw. "A beginning, not an ending."

He's quiet for a long, long moment, and when he finally speaks, his voice is raw. "That's a real pretty story. Never put much stock in stories, though."

She puts a hand on his shoulder. "I know. But I wanted to tell you anyway." She sets his mug on the table, pours the tea into it, then sets the empty mug and the kettle next to it, moves toward the door. She's done all she can. He doesn't understand, struggles to focus, to push the words out.

"Now you ain't thirsty, either?" he manages—surprise, and a little anger, too.

"It wasn't for me," she answers over her shoulder, and she can just hear Inara's slippered step on the opposite threshold as she lets the door swing shut behind her.

River moves through the humming darkness to the engine room, the grating cool under her feet, curls up in the warm haven of Kaylee's empty hammock. She rests a hand against the wall and watches the bright whirling of _Serenity_ 's heart. She feels herself whirling with it, feels all of them, holes and lead and light and dust, tumbling and tiny and free, and she smiles even as the tears slip down her cheeks. When she speaks, it's a reverent whisper.

_"Watch us soar."_


End file.
